


Percival Weasley: Wartime OSHA Inspector

by wisekrakens



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23919475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisekrakens/pseuds/wisekrakens
Summary: Cauldron bottoms areimportant.No one but Percy seems to understand this, really, which makes him want to scream into the void.Cauldron bottoms are important.A not canon-compliant character study set just before and after Percy ditches the Ministry and about his relationship with rules, inspired by some Percy meta.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	Percival Weasley: Wartime OSHA Inspector

**Author's Note:**

> I banged this out in about an hour and a half and it's my first fic in about four years, so I think that deserves commemoration. It was 100% pantsed.
> 
> "Wix" and "wixen" are used as the gender-neutral noun and adjective (respectively) for magical folk; Magic is treated as something like a deity or force of nature. Neither is really central to understanding the story, but I think they're nice.

Cauldron bottoms are _important_.

No one but Percy seems to understand this, really, which makes him want to scream into the void. _Cauldron bottoms are important._ Cauldron bottoms are what keeps the cauldron’s insides from becoming the cauldron’s outsides and, consequently, wixen toes attached to wixen feet. Professor Snape had spoken extensively on the subject of cauldron safety: bottom and side thickness, metal composition (in the event that they were, in fact, metallic, which had been a lecture saved for fifth year), storage conditions, upkeep, wear, the differing effects caused by patinas and corrosion and how to tell the difference between the two…

As he tours the cauldron production facility, automatically noting down its numerous safety infractions, Percy wonders if anyone bothered to check the citations at the end of his cauldron bottom essay; if they had, they would have found that a good three quarters of them had referenced various lectures given by Potions Master Snape.

Professor Snape would have noticed. If he weren’t currently… occupied elsewhere, he would have noticed. Percy had caught sight of the Ministry’s monthly potions mailer on his classroom desk a time or two.

Percy duplicates his report forms, as per regulation, and hands the second stack to the foreman on his way out, along with a notice of required closure. It wouldn’t take more than a day and a hundred galleons to fix the problems and pay the fines, depending on the talent of the wix in question. A slap on the wrist, in Percy’s opinion. He’d prefer to charge each cauldron-maker with a count of negligence for every injury caused by their faulty cauldrons and manslaughter for every death, but alas, that requires proving knowledge beforehand.

“It very much matters, Foreman Ulfgard,” Percy says in response to their stutters of protest. “As a consequence of the steadily increasing failure rate of domestically-produced cauldrons, the Ministry has tightened regulations. You’ll see, on the third page,” Percy flips to the section automatically, “that cauldrons sold within Wizarding Britain are now required to have a bottom thickness of one inch and a side thickness of three-quarters of an inch. And yes, Foreman, that does include imported cauldrons.”

“A day’s production lost! At least! What am I going to tell the owners, Mister--” the foreman peers at Percy’s official name badge, “Weasley? What?”

“And yet, that is not my concern,” Percy sighs. “Good day, Foreman Ulfgard. The fines are due within ten business days, payable to the Ministry’s Production Regulation Office, and I shall return in two weeks’ time to review the progress on safety measures. More exact details will be owled to you within two to three business days.”

He leaves the rapidly enraging foreman behind him as he makes for the nearest apparition point. “Just follow the rules,” he whispers to the wind. “Everything would be fine if everyone just _followed the rules_.”

But then Percy gathers himself. Destination. Deliberation. Determination. And he swirls through the absence of space to land in the Ministry Atrium, among even more rule-breakers.

For all they spout off about the sanctity of magical life, these rule-breakers care even less about cauldron bottoms. Have they never seen the photographs of feet irreversibly scarred and twisted by fallen potion? Have they never taken statements from production potion-brewers as they’re fitted for prosthetics? Well, no, of course not. Percy had already known the answer to that question, and yet remembering it never fails to make him angry and tired.

Mostly tired, these days.

He misses his mum.

He’s the last of the line, though. He’s pretty sure he’s the last, after Thurgood’s mysterious disappearance the other week. Someone needs to uphold the law, or else all is lost.

It had not yet occurred to him that everything was already lost. He had never developed the trick of seeing the forest before the trees.

Percy’s return to his office is met with ominous silence. The corridor is empty; the break room is deserted, as well, though a cup of tea still steams gently near the kettle. The stakes might be higher, but Percy learned many charms in the effort to keep ahead of his brothers, and he casts the first one now.

No one is in his office. At least, no one that he can detect.

He casts the second.

It tells him about the magical whirlwind tearing apart his desk.

He casts the third.

No trip-spells have been connected to his office door, door jamb, door knob, or the space that makes up the threshold. At least, none that he can detect.

He casts a new charm, a fourth one that he worked out himself after seeing an auror do it a few times.

Dark magic residue shaped like fingerprints light up all over everything, including the steaming tea in the break room.

Great. Another rule broken.

It shouldn’t feel different, given the circumstances, but through the haze of Percy’s exhaustion, it does. The whirlwind Percy can excuse; his repertoire of repair and reordering charms is extensive and has seen frequent use. But capital-D Dark magic…

Percy has set very few rules for himself over his lifetime, preferring instead to adopt those that have already been tried and tested and approved by an authority. One of those, however, is a complete and total intolerance of the use of Dark magic on the basis that its uncontrolled usage is an affront to the Laws of Magic, and that because he is not employed in one of the few professions in which it has legitimate purpose, it’s best practice in his case that it should be rejected entirely.

Nature has rules, too, Percy has found. Capital-D Dark magic breaks them, twists them, spits them out. It subverts things that should never be subverted.

Wand still raised, Percy sets his mouth and thinks. Which rule outweighs the other? To stay at work and perform his job? To honor his employment contract, despite the current administration’s complete disregard for its terms? Or to honor Magic and his family and utterly reject any Dark magic used in his vicinity?

Percy’s not stupid. He knows this was done by those rule-breakers in the atrium. Nothing happens here without their knowledge and blessing, one way or the other.

Maybe… maybe, if Dark magic had stained the halls of the Ministry, where Dark magic has absolutely no place, maybe those who hold authority can be fallible. Maybe the rules aren’t always right. Maybe they won’t always keep him safe, or see justice done in the end.

What should he do, when two of his foundational rules are inherently contradictory?

Percy lets his heart decide.

He points his wand upwards and gives it a swirl. Certain items disappear from his office and reappear before him; another swirl conjures a backpack and stuffs them inside just as alarms begin to sound. By current standards, reviewed last week, he has two minutes before the fireplaces close. He’s only one floor down. Plenty of time.

A tap to the outside heel of both of his shoes gives them wings; he rises into the air, carefully controlled, and _zooms_ down the corridor and out the lift shaft. Spells fly up at him as he wind-sprints through the atrium, but none connect. He’s too fast, too good at this for them to catch as he throws floo powder into the fireplace directly ahead of him, shouting the public floo address that comes to him quickest, and twists so that he goes into the flames back-first.

He tumbles out into the Three Broomsticks and takes to the air again, disillusioned, and flies high above his pursuers as they search Hogsmeade.

Now, where exactly would the twins choose to hide?

Percy’s insistence on safety and caution amuses and irritates the Order of the Phoenix in turns. He doesn’t much care about their opinion anymore: he’s interested in seeing as many people as possible coming through this alive.

He’s nicknamed Mad-Eye Percy, and he considers it an honor. He also hopes Moody doesn’t mind that a paper-pusher seems to have inherited his legacy.

When the Order storms Hogwarts that fateful May Day, its members are covered in Featherfall charms, disillusionments, and the twins’ shield hats. Restorative and healing potions clink in every pocket.

Percy yells about Death Eaters and missing railings in equal measure; Malfoys and the redcaps sprouting up even now, before the battle is won; Dark magic and poorly-lit stairwells. He also adheres strictly to the Auror Rules of Engagement, having coaxed it out of Tonks months previously, even when his allies look at him sideways as he binds wounds and squirts Draught of Living Death into stunned Death Eaters’ mouths.

It’s reversible. It’s not easy to do, though, and he doesn’t feel bad when he sticks motionless enemies to Hogwarts’ walls to face trial later. He thinks that Dumbledore would approve, and that makes him happy inside.

No one Percy is close to dies, something that he is very thankful for, and there are much fewer casualties than he’d feared when he’d been brewing all those potions in an extra-thick cauldron, just to be sure.

Percy attends every Death Eater trial, mostly to give testimony as to why he’d felt it necessary to dose them with the Draught and stick them to a wall, but also to watch them finally, finally face consequences for their law-breaking. He finds it cathartic but tells no one, because he knows that they wouldn’t get it.

As the last remaining Department Head, Arthur Weasely is made Acting Minister, pending confirmation. He names Kingsley Shacklebolt Acting Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, pending confirmation, and Kingsley in turn names Percy as his Acting Deputy Head in charge of Civil and Industrial Codes, pending confirmation, which involves folding his dad’s old department into the MLE.

Percy hangs his Order of Merlin, First Class, on the wall of his shiny new office and thinks that he might never have been this content in his entire life. But before he can tackle his new responsibilities, he has a cauldron factory to check up on.

His grin may or may not stretch into something like one of the twins’ at the look on Foreman Ulfgard’s face when he knocks politely on the warehouse door.

“Foreman Ulfgard, I believe that you’ve received my owl?” Percy says cheerfully. “I’m here for your follow-up inspection. I do apologize for the delay: there was a matter that required my immediate attention.”

Oh yes. Extremely cathartic.


End file.
